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THE 

JUNIUS TRACTS. 
No. IV. 

Sept.] published every second month. [1843. 



LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 






BY JUNIUS. 

Author of " The Crisis of the Country," and other Tracts of 1840. 
Price, 3 cents single, $2 50 c(s. per 100, or $20 per 1000. 



Tracts already published. 

No. I. THE TEST, or Parties tried by their Acts- 
" II. THE CURRENCY. 
" III. THE TARIFF. 
« IV. LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 
« V. POLITICAL ABOLITION. 
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are requested to send their orders, with remittances, to the publishers, Greeley $ McElrath, 
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1844. 



[Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1843, by Calvin Colton, in the Clerk's office of the 
District Court of the United States, in and for the Southern District of New York.] 

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I 

t 

LIFE OF HENRY CLAY. 

Mr. Clay was born the 12th of April, 1777, in Hanover county, Virginia. His father was 
a Baptist minister, who left his wife a widow in indigence, when Henry was in his fifth year, 
with seven young children, and two younger than Henry. Mr. Robert Hughes, a playfellow 
of Henry Clay in boyhood, said «f his old friend, at a dinner on the Fourth of July, 1843, at 
Campbell Court House, Virginia : " He and I were born close to the slashes of old Hanover. 
He worked barefooted, and so did I. He went to mill, and so did I. He was good to his 
mamma, and so was I. I know him like a book, and love him like a brother." The boy 
that works barefooted for his mother, will be very likely, when he comes to be a man, if 
Providence opens the way, to serve his country well. The two spheres are kindred to each 
other. 

Mr. Clay's first rudiments of education were acquired in a log schoolhouse. In the mean- 
time, he had to work barefooted and go to mill. He is familiarly called in " old Hanover" 
the " Mill-boy of the Slashes," — having been so often seen between his mother's house 
and Mrs. Darricott's grist-mill on the Pamunkey, mounted on a bag and a poney, guided by a 
rope-bridle. At the age of fourteen, he went to serve as clerk witli Mr. Richard Denny, 
druggist, in Richmond, Va. ; and the next year, 1792, went into the office of Peter Tinsley, 
Esq., clerk of the High Court of Chaneery,*where he attracted the notice, and received the 
kind regards of the venerable Chancellor Wythe, who afterward employed him as his amanu- 
ensis in recording his decisions, comments, &c. In these not unfavorable positions, spurred on 
by his ambition, and cherished by the Chancellor and others who had the sagacity to recog- 
nise the germe of his future eminence, he made rapid advances in legal and other studies. 
After spending his nineteenth year in the office of Robert Brooke, Esq., Attorney General 
for the State of Virginia, Mr. Clay obtained license for the practice of law from the Judges 
of the Court of Appeals in his native State. 

Removal to Kentucky. 
In 1792 Mr. Clay's mother had married Mr. Henry Watkins, and removed with her family 
to Woodford county, Kentucky. Attracted by his filial regard, Henry was induced to follow 
her; and in 1797 Mr. Clay, a youth of twenty, opened an attorney's office in Lexington, as 
he says in his speech of June 6, 1842, at that place, "without patrons, without the favor or 
countenance of the great or opulent, and without the means of paying my weekly board. I 
remember how comfortable I thought I should be, if I could make one hundred pounds, Virginia 
money, a year, and with what delight I received the first fiftem-shilling fee. My hopes were 
more than realized. I immediately rushed into a lucrative practice." 

A pleasant story. 

While Mr. Clay was yet a stranger at Lexington, he joined a debating club, but for some 
time declined taking any part in the discussions. After a while, however, it happened that 
a question was about to be put by the chairman for decision, when Mr. Clay, in a low voice, 
said to a fellow-member by his side, that he thought the question was not exhausted. Where- 
upon, glad of the chance, and without leave, Mr. Clay's friend suddenly rose, and said, " Mr. 
Chairman, Mr. Clay will speak on this question." Thus unexpectedly forced up, and abashed 
with that diffidence which gifted minds usually feel before they are used to collision with 
other minds, Mr. Clay began : " Gentlemen of the Jury," and perceiving his mistake, he 
stopp-d short. But through the politeness of the chairman and the club, who had wished to 
see him come out, he was encouraged to begin again : " Gentlemen of the Jury," said Mr. 
Clay, and there he stopped. At last, however, he got over the distressing balk, and gradually 
acquiring self-possession, he made an argument that excited the astonishment and admiration 
of all. The ice being thus broken, he walked straight into a reputation, that has never 
flagged, and never baen stained. 

The self-made man. 

" Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." 
The first certainly was not the lot of Henry Clay, nor was greatness thrust upon him. All 
the distinction he has acquired, was achieved— achieved by his single arm, by his own lofty 
aims. Such is the self-made man. He will ever be honored, who, by his own inherent vigor 
and high aspirations, has successfully contended against obstacles that would dispirit ordinary 
minds, and baffled in an honorable career the adverse winds and storms of unhopeful birth and 
fortune In the blood and on the graves of our fathers, martyrs to freedom, was laid a plat- 
form for such endeavors, on which our youth, whatever their origin, may build high hopes, 
and earn an imperishable fame. The spectacle of the boy working " barefooted" for his 
mother, touches all hearts; and when that boy, in riper years, is seen toiling through a like 
career for his country, the mother of us all, he obeys the instincts, and fulfils the high destiiw 
of his filial piety. 



Mr. Clay at the bar. 

It might be difficult to say, whether Mr. Clay was more able in the management of criminal 
or civil causes ; but it is easy to decide in which he early acquired the highest reputation. His 
characteristic sympathy for the unfortunate, especially for persons in peril of life, awoke the 
profoundest feelings of his nature, and he never failed of success in his defence of persons ac- 
cused of capital crime, though he had cases in hand which seemed to all others hopeless, as 
for example, those of Mrs. Phelps, of the two Germans, father and son, and of Willis, all 
clearly cases of murder in an aggravated degree, but all successfully defended by this young 
advocate. The only capital case in which he appeared for plaintiffs, was against a slave, 
who had killed his master while undertaking to chastise him, which resulted in the slave's 
condemnation. With this exception, Mr. Clay has always been the defender of slaves, and 
often, never without success, volunteered his services in suits for their freedom, and in other 
cases. It has ever been a scrupulous rule with Mr. Clay, that no man, freeman or slave, should 
go without defence in law for want of money, when it was in his power to aid them. 

Nor was Mr. Clay less successful in civil cases. Down to this time, he has been regarded 
as second to no counsellor in the Union. In one case, involving the land laws of Virginia 
and Kentucky, while yet a young man, he had, in a necessary absence, left it in the hands of 
an associate counsel, who was foiled by his opponents at all points, during a two-days contest ; 
but just as the case was being submitted to the Court, who would doubtless have decided 
against him, Mr. Clay came in, had a moment's conversation with his colleague, addressed 
the Court for half an hour, in total ignorance of the evidence that had been adduced, and 
gained the cause ! 

Mr. Clay and emancipation. 

When Mr. Clay arrived in Kentucky, he found the people of the State agitating the question 
of remodelling the Constitution, and a very respectable minority were in favor of introducing a 
clause for the gradual emancipation of the slaves, as had been done in some of the northern 
States, by freeing at a specific age those born after the adoption of the proposed Constitution, 
that ultimately all should be free. Mr. Clay enlisted in this project of emancipation with 
great zeal, and devoted all his energies, through the press, by personal influence, and in an 
active campaign, to accomplish this end. But he and his associates were unsuccessful. More 
than twenty years afterwards, when he proposed the compromise to settle the Missouri ques- 
tion, he declared, on the floor of Congress, that, if he were a citizen of Missouri, he would use 
all his influence to establish a system of gradual and ultimate emancipation, and he earnestly 
recommended it. In a speech at the anniversary of the American Colonization Society, in 1827, 
Mr. Clay said of slavery, " If I could only be instrumental in eradicating this deepest stain 
upon the character of our country, I would not exchange the proud satisfaction I should enjoy, 
for the honor of all the triumphs ever decreed to the most successful conqueror." 

The alien and sedition laws. 

These two laws were passed at the Session of 1798-'9. The first gave power to the Presi- 
dent to banish an alien at his discretion, if he judged his presence here prejudicial to the in-' 
tercsts of the country ; and the second put a stopper on freedom of speech and of the press, 
in discussing the merits of public men. The second was certainly against the Constitution, and 
the first was no less a bold stride towards monarchical power. Kentucky was the first of the 
States that shook the dewdrops from her mane, and Henry Clay was the organ of her indigna- 
tion. Then only twenty-two years of age, the thunders of his eloquence electrified the 
people. No other man was so prominent in the field, and none so effective in that influence, 
which raised Mr. Jefferson to power, as this young champion of democracy. A true democrat 
then, he is so still, and ever has been. Where can be found, in this broad land, a more vigi- 
lant sentinel of popular rights, or a more faithful denouncer of Executive usurpations, and the 
abuses of Executive power ? 

The saddle on the wrong horse. 

In a reply to Mr. Calhoun, while the sub-treasury was under debate, Mr. Clay said : " All 
Hie former grounds of difference which distinguished that (the Federal) party, and were the 
subjects of contention between them and the Republicans, have ceased, from lapse of time 
and change of circumstance, except one, and that is the maintenance and increase of Executive 
povier. This was the leading policy of the Federal party. A strong, powerful, and energetic 
Executive was its favorite tenet. I tell the gentleman, that he will find the true- old democratic 
parly, who were for resisting the encroachments of power, and limiting Executive patronage, 
on this side, of the Senate, and not with his new allies, who do not hold a solitary principle m 
common with the republican party of 1798. It is the old Federal party with Whom he is 

NOW ACTING." 

Mr. Clay's entrance into public life. 
In 1803 Mr. Clay was elected from Fayette county to a seat in the lower house of the Ken- 
tucky legislature, and was immediately pitted against Mr. Felix Grundy in defending the 



charter of the Lexington Insurance Company against a movement for its repeal, in which he 
was successful by convincing the Senate, who listened to his argument in the Assembly, 
though he lost the vote of his own house. It was in this field that Mr. Clay's parliamentary 
powers were first presented to public gaze, and gave earnest of future and high promise. 
He was a leader there, as everywhere, and a favorite of the public. From this time to the 
war of 1812, we find him alternately in the legislature of his adopted State, and in the coun- 
cils of the nation at Washington. In 1S06 he was transferred to the Senate of the United 
States for one session, to fill out the unexpired term of the Hon. John Adair, resigned, where 
lie immediately distinguished himself as one of the earliest movers — •more properly, perhaps, 
the founder — of tiie internal improvement system. After having been again returned to the 
house of assembly in Kentucky, and made speaker, he was in 1809 sent back to the United 
States Senate for two years, to complete the term of the Hon. Buckner Thurston, who had 
resigned. It was in April, 1811, while a bill to provide munitions of war, &c, was under 
debate in the Senate, and during the pendency of an amendment giving -preference to article* 
of American grouih and manufacture, that Mr. Clay boldly and distinctly propounded and 
advocated his views on the policy of protection. The amendment prevailed. Mr. Madison 
found himself sustained by all the powers of Mr. Clay, in his proclamation to assert our 
jurisdiction to the line of the Perdido in Florida. Various and active were the exertions ot 
Mr. Clay in the Senate, during this Congress ; and among the rest, as is known, he was 
found in. opposition to the rechartet of the Bank of the United States. 

Mr. Clay and Aaron Burr. 
There was a time when the envious rivals of Mr. Clay, if such men could be his rivals, 
undertook to calumniate him for consenting to defend Colonel Burr on his first trial. Mr. 
Burr had written to Mr. Clay, and assured him, on the honor of a gentleman, that theis was 
no foundation for the charges against him ; whereupon Mr. Clay, with his characteristic 
generosity, undertook his defence, and succeeded; bat afterward, having discovered the 
truth, treated him as he deserved. Kven if Mr. Clay had had no such assurances from Col. 
Burr, it would be a slender compliment tu our laws and institutions, which profess u 
guaranty an accused person a fair trial, to deny him counsel ! 

Mr. Cl'iy elected to the House of Representatives of the United States. 

In all the public stations, successively, which Mr. Clay occupied from 1803 to 1811, we 
find him always prominent: always looked up to, though a young man; always leading oil" 
on some stirring theme or in some important measure, riveting the attention and commanding 
the respect of the bodies of which he was a member, and rising in this western hemisphere a 
star of uncommon brilliancy. Having a choice of a seat in the Senate or House of Repre- 
sentatives of the United State-, in 181 1, he did not hesitate to prefer the latter,for the stirring 
and eventful period that was then before the country, in a prospect of war with Great Britain. 
On the first ballot he was ma le Speaker, an honor never before or since conferred on a new 
member. 

Mr. Clay and the war. 

It is known that W,e went into the war with Great Britain in the midst of powerfully-con- 
flicting opinions as to the necessity, propriety, or expediency of so momentous a step ; that 
the administration and its friends were vigorously assailed from where they had need and 
some claims for encouragement and support ; that the first stages of the war were disastrous, 
and, as such, gave eminent advantage to the opposition and to the enemy. But the brilliant 
achievements of its later stages, and the final result, put the whole matter in a new and dif- 
ferent light. The lapse of nearly thirty years has served only to impart additional validity 
to a general conviction at first entertained, that we acquired by that struggle very important 
benefits anil needful advantages. 

The part borne by Mr. Clay, in that trying period of our history, adds not less to his claims 
on the gratitude of his country, than to the blaze of his reputation. At one time portraying. 
in manly terms and with flashing indignation, the injuries and insults of the foe; at another. 
remonstrating with domestic opponents: then turning, with a true American heart, and 
laying his electrifying hand on the heart of the American people, he disarmed opposition, 
chased away the fears of the timid, imparted fresh courage to the strong, and stood by the 
Government, erect, prominent, and influential in its counsels, both in the origination and 
conduct of the war. He was as a general-in-chief over the intellectual power of the country, 
and the breath of his mouth moved over it as the wind of heaven sways the forests of an 
unbroken wilderness. His animating spirit, his stirring eloquence, his useful counsels, and 
bis untiring ogertcy, from the position he occupied, were everywhere felt, and equally bene- 
ficial in our army and navy, to excite them to noble and successful deeds, as in the presiding 
magistracy of the nation, to give it constancy and vigor. By his timely advice, and by the 
magic of his persuasions, the resources of the country started up from then - places of repose, 
organized, disciplined, and in force; and the nation was victorious. He was the guidiug 



genius of the conflict, which ended, not less by his instrumentality, for the honor and enduring 
good of the republic. See the detail of his action as Speaker and Member of the House of 
Representatives, and read his speeches, as an illustration and in proof of this brief sketch. 

Mr. Mudison's estimate of Mr. Clay. 

He invited him repeatedly into his Cabinet, and offered him the mission to Russia, then 
deemed very important. He even proposed to put Mr. Clay at the head of the army ; and 
was only deterred from sending in his name to the Senate for the appointment of General-in- 
Chief by the advice that he could not be spared from the public councils. 

Mr. Clay's services in the Treaty of Ghent. 

When the offensive demands first put forward by the British Commissioners were chiefly 
waived, a difficulty arose in a want of harmony in our own Board, on a very important 
<ruestion, to wit, whether the right of navigation on the Mississippi should be conceded to the 
British? Messrs. Adams, Gallatin, and Bayard, were in favor of it, and Messrs. Clay and 
Russell opposed to it. The reasons for it were, first, that it was a former right : and, next, 
that if not granted, it was likely to disturb our fishing rights a? before enjoyed. The reasons 
against it were, first, that when before conceded, the Mississippi was supposed to have its 
sources in the British dominions, in which case it is a usual right among nations ; but it wa9 
since ascertained, that its sources lie within our jurisdiction. The British might as properly 
demand the right of navigating the Connecticut, the Hudson, the Potomac, or any or all of 
our rivers. Secondly, the instructions of our commissioners forbade treating on the naviga- 
tion of rivers whose sources arc in our bounds. Thirdly, in the then present and prospective 
condition of the great west, and in our relations with Indian tribes, the admission of the 
British into those waters must, necessarily, be prolific of incalculable evils, of endles3 
controversy, and would endanger the peace of the two countries. Mr. Clay, therefore, being 
in the minority, felt himself constrained to say, that he would put his signature to no treaty 
conceding the proposed right. This brought Mr. Bayard over to his side, and the treaty was 
concluded without prejudice to our fishing interests. Who can tell what the country owes to 
Mr. Clay for his foresight and firmness on this occasion .' 

The respect and esteem he acquired with the British commissioners, the honors paid him 
at Paris and London after the conclusion of the treaty, and his reception at home, are a 
sufficient attestation of the high consideration he had won both in this country and abroad. 

Mr. Clay's imputed change of opinion on the stibject of a national bank. 

After Mr. Clay's return from abroad, he was again sent to Congress, and again made 
Speaker of the House of Representatives. It was this Congress (the fourteenth) which 
rechartered the Bank of the United States, and Mr. Clay gave it his support. The change, 
however, was rather in the commercial and monetary condition of the country, making more 
evident what was " necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers of Con- 
gress," specified in the Constitution, in regard to the currency, than in Mr. Clay. His oppo- 
sition to a national bank in 1811 was based on the belief he then entertained, that it was not 
" necessary" in the sense of the Constitution, and therefore not " proper," and that the 
State banks were sufficient. But the sad experience of four years, without a national bank, 
had demonstrated to Mr. Clay's mind, and to all the world, that the State banks were insuf- 
ficient, and that a national bank was "necessary," which brought such a measure within the 
constitutional powers of the General Government. This v:as the change. Mr. Clay's former 
opinion was founded on one set of facts, the latter on another ; and though there is a differ- 
ence, there is no inconsistency. 

Anecdotes. 

For having voted for Mr. Richard M. Johnson's " Compensation Bill,''' in 18 J (J, an unpopu- 
lar measure, and repealed at the next Congress, Mr. Clay had to make his defence to his 
constituents. Meeting an old hunter one day, who was against him on that account, Mr. 
Clay asked him : " Have you a good rifle, my friend ?" " Yes." " Does it ever fash f" 
" It did once." " And did you throw it away ?" "No : I picked the flint, tried it again, and 
brought down the game." " Have I ever flashed, except on the Compensation Bill V " No !"' 
" And will you throw me away ?" " No ! no !" cried the hunter, with tears in his eyes, and 
grasping Mr. Clay's hand, — " No ! no ! T will pick the flint, and try you again." 

A barber in Lexington was also in the same state of feeling toward Mr. Clay, and about 
to vote against him. But meeting Mr. Clay one day in the street, he accosted him, and said, 
" I have wronged you, Mr. Clay." " How so ?" " Why, my wife came to me, and said, 
' Jerry, don't you remember when you were in jail, and Mr. Clay came and let you out t 
and will you vote against him V « No ! no ! Jinny,' I said, < do you think I am such a beast ?' " 

Mr. Clay's efforts in Congress for the recognition of the independence of the South American States. 

The name of Henry Clay, of North America, is better known, and excites more gratitude, 

in the republics and States of South America, than that of any other man, living or dead, 



foreign to that quarter of the globe ; and he is known there only as the early, disinterested, 
heroic advocate of their emancipation. If they have not yet done as well as we could have 
wished, it detracts not at all from the virtue which so magnanimously espoused their cause, 
and finally won for them such important advantages. In 1816 Mr. Clay begun to plead for 
them in the American Congress ; in 181S he made a speech in those halls, which was read at 
the head of the armies of South America, while fighting for freedom, and electrified their 
hearts ; and in 1822, after six years of struggle against opposition, he had the satisfaction of 
witnessing the consummation of his aim?, in the recognition of their independence by our 
Government. In 1827 he had a letter of thanks from Bolivar, to which he replied, with his 
characteristic frankness, expressing his regrets that Bolivar had disappointed the hopes of 
mankind, and commending to him the example of the immortal Washington. 

Mr. Clay on Internal Improvement. 
On the Cumberland road is erected a monument, surmounted by the Genius of Liberty, an i 
inscribed with the name of Henry Ci.ay, in recognition and testimony of the fact, that this 
great national work, which has levelled the Alleganies, and created a powerful bond for the 
perpetuity of the Union, owes its existence to him, as a part of that great and beneficent 
" American System," so called, of which he is the acknowledged father. Internal improve- 
ment, as a national policy, though sanctioned, as is believed, by the Constitution, and without 
doubt sanctioned by the opinion and wishes of the country, when freely and fairly expressed, 
has balked sadly all along by means of Executive scruples and one-man power. For a length 
of years Mr. Clay battled heroically for this sublime enterprise, and has stamped upon the 
public mind an impression not easily to be eradicated. He has sown seed in the field, which, 
under more genial suns, will yield their fruit. The question lies only for a while upon the 
shelf, where unworthy hands have put it, and will doubtless come down again to fructify the 
Union with its blessings. Nay, it is not on the shelf. The influence of the originator and 
stimulator of this magnificent scheme, has been felt by the States, and prompted the members 
of the great family, in their separate capacity, to assume the more appropriate functions of 
the unnatural parent, and, in no small extent, to make amends for her defect of duty. It 
must be done, and will be done. Then will the Union be bound by ties which nothing can 
break, and the great arteries of this life-giving influence will conduct the vital current to 
every part. 

Mr. Clay and American labor. 

It has been the lot, the good fortune, the peculiar talent, the high gift, we may say the 
genius of Henry Clay, not only in being endowed with sagacity to pry into the present, but 
with prophecy to look into the future. A wise system of national policy, in all its parts, 
would seem to have sprung forth in full maturity from his mind, before the seed had broken 
its shell in the general mind. Hence the tardiness with which the nation has been inducted into 
his views, and the facility with which they have been temporarily blinded. Winds and storms 
and the convulsions of nature may disturb the action of the tides; but these mighty move- 
ments of nature do not follow the sun and the moon more surely, than the public mind of thia 
country moves forward in the path of its inspired and guiding genius. Mr. Clay has never 
propounded a great thought or a great measure, or made a public argument, which has not 
sunk into the mind of the American people, and gone to the bottom, where it is securely 
anchored. He lias only to stand still, and the nation will come to him. It is coming now, 
has long been coming, it has come. 

Take that part of his " American system," which throws its shield over American labor, 
industry, and enterprise, which was conceived by Mr. Clay when he first came into public 
life, and which has been toiled for by him from that day to this, and there is not a single 
article of it which the public mind of the country is not at this moment prepared to adopt. 
(See our Tract on the Tariff.) It is at last found out, that American labor, industry, enter- 
prise, products, and interests, mn.st be protected — that protection is not only necessary, but 
proper in the nature of things, and in the laws of human society; and that nothing is more 
preposterous, or more suicidal, than to put and leave ourselves in the power of foreign fac- 
tors and foreign Governments, as, to a great extent, we have done heretofore. 

What American labor — (we use this term in all its applications to manufactures, the 
mechanic arts, agriculture, and commerce, more especially the first two) — what American 
labor owes to Mr. Clay, is too well known to need repetition. It has been badly enough pro- 
tected, at best. But all it lias had of fair reward, all the manufactories that have sprung up 
in the country on which labor so extensively depends, the entire system indeed, are chiefly 
to be ascribed to the conceptions, zeal, and efforts of Henry Clay. Not to speak of the 
decided stand he took at an early period in his adopted State, or of his ellbrts of the same 
character in Congress, in 1810', when the proper effectiveness of the tariff of that year failed 
only by the loss of Mr. Clay's amendment, which he urged with so much eloquence and zeal, 
in 182U, when the specie was flowing out of the country like rivers into the sea, for want of 



an adequate tariff, a new and great effort was made, with Mr. Clay at its head, which failed, 
notwithstanding all the agony of his patriotic endeavors. Foreseeing the fate of the measure, 
while under debate, Mr. Clay said : — " I frankly own, that I feel great solicitude for the suc- 
cess of this bill." And in his deep and thrilling tone, he added : — " But 1 will not despair. 
The cause, I verily believe, is the cause of the country. It may be postponed; it may be. 
frustrated for the moment ; but it finally must prevail." In 1824, it did prevail, and Mr. 
Justice Baldwin, of the Supreme Court, said of Mr. Clay on that occasion, that " he wa^ 
General, corporal, and private," so multiform were his functions, so assiduous his efforts. It 
has been said, and facts attest its truth, that the seven years subsequent to the tarifl of 1824, 
were the most prosperous in the history of the country. The tariff of 1828 was in some re- 
spects unequal and unfair, in consequence of an attempt of Martin Van Buren and Silas Wright 
to break down the system, by over-straining certain parts of it, in which, for the time, they failed. 

The. Compromise Act. 

Mr. Clay has been blamed for this. And why ? But for that, Mr. Verplanck's bill, 
reducing duties to a common level of 15 per cent., known to be an Administration measure, 
would have passed, and the whole system of manufactures, and all the capital vested in them, 
would have perished. In addition to this, nullification threatened to deluge the land in the 
blood of a civil war. Mr. Clay's object, therefore, in the Compromise, was, first, to appease 
nullification; next, to save the system of manufactures; and lust, to give the nation, and all 
parties, time for reilection. He knew that nullification would cool down, that the policy of 
Mr. Verplanck's bill, at that moment in danger of being forced upon the country, would not 
bear sober reilection, and that it was competent for Congress at any lime to reconsider its pre- 
vious acts, and repeal or modify them. The Compromise Act, therefore, was a remedial, 
healing measure for an alarming crisis, and as such necessary and most beneficent. One 
thing more can be said of it: it was contingently a perfect scheme, and if the currency of the 
country had not been broken down, it would have sustained the manufacturing interests, and 
answered all the purposes of the country, till the time contemplated by its terms had arrived 
for revising and readjusting the tariff regulations. But, so long as the country was in the 
hands of the Destructive Dynasty, properly so called, the contingent prospects of the Com- 
promise Act were of course unfavorable for an ultimate salutary result. Nothing could save 
the country in such hands. 

The tariff of 1842. 

For want of space, we beg leave to refer to our Tracts on the Currency and the" Tariff, for 
what we should otherwise say here. As Mr. Clay was not in Congress at the passage of the 
Tariff of 1842, and has had little to say on public affairs since his retirement, his views of 
this measure can only be inferred from his known and published opinions. There may be 
details in it which he would wish to modify; but it was framed by those who thought it profit- 
able, and no less an honor, to be instructed by him, and who desired to carry out his policy. 
Its salutary effect in reviving business' and trade, and in restoring the prosperity of the 
country, is all the praise that need be bestowed upon it. We refer to our first Tract, The 
Test, for proofs of the other and important benefits to the country, in the way of retrench- 
ment and reform, effected by the 27th (Win?) Congress, notwithstanding the foul treason against 
which they had to contend, and which defeated their general policy. The Tariff alone is a 
compensation for the struggle and revolution of 1840, though the country has been most per- 
fidiously robbed of its just rights in the failure of other important measures. Doubtless, the 
people will avenge themselves in 1844. 

The history of Mr. Clay's policy and efforts in regard to protection. 
We do not propose to give this history, for we have no room, but only to say, it is one and 
ttie same from beginning to end. A true disciple of Jefferson in this particular, he moved 
while a member of the Kentucky legislature, that each member should clothe himself, from 
head to foot, in domestic fabrics ; and if we take this fact as the gcrme and index of his policy. 
through life, we shall not greatly err. Mr. Clay was never an ultra, or a bigot ; but he knew 
what the interests of the country required, and was willing to set an impressive example — 
not that he would exclude imports, injure the foreign trade of the country, and thereby impair 
the revenue ; but he wished to see the country truly independent. " Our complete indepen- 
dence," he said in 1820, " will only be consummated after the policy of this bill shall be 
recognised and adopted." This bill, as we have seen, was lost. 

A retrospect and, prospect. 
Hard, painful, perilous, and changful, has been the conflict in this country against the Des- 
tructive Dynasty; but something has been gained. We have a system of manufactures, though 
imperfect, and a host of thriving mechanics and artisans, and they have done enough to show 
what can be done. The foundation is laid, though the edifice is incomplete. No [in\vr, wa 
trust, can upset this beginning, since the people Lave uncovered its importance, and feel it 



8 

more and more every day. On the Cumberland Road stands a monument, announcing to the 
world and future generations, who battled successfully for Internal Improvement. Not one 
monument alone, but tens, hundreds will be raised throughout the land, to tell the world and 
posterity, who was the father of the "American System" — who the successful Defender of the 
rights of American labor. 

The Missouri question. 

All know, that this was a stern trial of the republic. We propose to notice it only so far 
as it is connected with Mr. Clay, whose efforts and influence hushed the tempest, and carried 
the country safely through it. In consequence of professional occupation at home, Mr. Clay 
had resigned the Speaker's Chair by a letter at the opening of the Session of 1820-'21, and 
did not arrive at Washington till the 16th of January, when he found Congress in a blaze of 
excitement on the Missouri question. All eyes were turned to him. After sounding the 
state of feeling, he moved, on the 2d of February, and carried the appointment of a Committee 
of thirteen, upon this subject, and was himself made Chairman. On the 10th, he reported a 
Compromise, which was rejected by a small majority of the House, after repeated trials. He 
then moved for a joint Committee of both Houses, which was carried, and acceded to by the 
Senate, the result of which was a report in effect the same as that before made to the House, 
which was ratified by both branches, without farther controversy, and the question was settled, 
on condition of its being accepted by the State of Missouri, as was afterward done. 

In this adjustment, if we mistake not, the principle was recognised, that in States, where 
slavery has existed since the organization of our Government, the question of its abolition or 
continuance, shall be left where the Federal Constitution has left it, viz. in the sovereignty 
of those States, and that this rule applied to Missouri, as having been received into the Union 
as a part of Louisiana. The compromise acceded to by Missouri, was, first, the suppression 
of an obnoxious provision in her Constitution, designed to exclude from her jurisdiction free 
colored people of other States ; and next, an admission to the freedom of the Union, in her 
limits, of all persons recognised as citizem of other States, it being understood, that free colored 
people are so recognised in some of the States. 

Mr. Clay's views and feelings, as an emancipationist of the old school, what he said on the 
floor of Congress, and his advice to the State of Missouri, on this occasion, have been noticed 
in another place. 

" The Great Pacificator." 
In Kentucky Mr. Clay had early acquired the name of" the Great Commoner" the people's 
man. Protracted, and almost hopeless as this Missouri controversy had become, agitating the 
whole nation from the outmost verge to the centre, and threatening to rend in pieces the fair 
frame of this republic, Mr. Clay had scarcely been at the seat of Government over a month, 
before it was settled, and settled for ever. With unanimous voice, and simultaneously, the 
Avhole country hailed him as " the Great Pacificator." Twice, on like emergencies, when 
all hope of conciliation appeared to be abandoned, has he stepped in, and rescued the nation 
from an impending civil war. The attitude of South Carolina, in 1833, with the torch of 
nullification in her hand, was even more formidable than this firebrand of the West. For one 
such achievement, by words of peace and kindness, a loftier, though less noisy fame is earned, 
than by vanquishing the foes of the country in the battle plain. " Blessed are the peace- 
makers." He who, dispensing with brute force, marches straight into the hearts of men, to 
conquer them there, is a hero of the highest order. The Duke of Wellington has confessed, 
that the courage of the field is physical. This is moral and sublime. It demonstrates a tact 
in swaying men's minds for purposes of good, rarely possessed. 

Mr. Clay in the Speaker's Chair. 

Two or three days after Mr. Clay's elevation to the Speaker's Chair, for the fourth time, in 
1823, the following lines appeared in the National Intelligencer: — 

" As near tho Potomac's broad stream, t'other day, 

Fair Liberty strolled, in solicitous mood, 
Deep pondering the future— unheeding; her way — 

She met goddess Nature beside a green wood. 
' Good mother,' she cried, ' deign to help me at need ! 

I must make fur my guardians a Speaker to-day ; 
Tho first in the world I would give them.' — ' Indeed ! 

When / made the first Speaker, I mado him of CLAY !' " 

The legislature of Kentucky, and the House of Representatives in Congress, seem always 
to have had this good advice before their eyes, while " the first in the world" was among 
Ihem. The captivating amenity, the commanding dignity, the exemplary impartiality, and the 
Useful energy, with which Mr. Clay discharged the laborious and responsible duties of this 
Nation lor so many years — twelve in Congress — are attested by all parties. 



Mr. Clay's indifference to the uUuremculs of place. 
As under Mr. Madison, so also under Mr. Monroe, lie was repeatedly called to the Cabinet, 
and offered a carte blanche for any one of tlie foreign missions. But he declined them all. It 
can not be denied, that the post he occupied in Congress, was vastly more important, and 
more influential, and no one can fail to commend his choice. Mr. Clay had his whole mind 
and heart bent on the great questions of the time, and it is no more than fair to allow, that 
he wanted to be where he could do most good to the country. In that place, he was near the 
people, was the people's man, and the whole country's man. With the mighty interests at 
stake in the war, with the questions of internal improvement and the Tariff pending, &c, &c, 
how could a man of his known temper and patriotism, be content with any post, however ex- 
alted or honorable, but that of legislation ? He preferred usefulness to place. 

Reception of Gen. La Fayette. 
The re-visit of this early friend and self-sacrificing champion of the American people, who 
came from the old world to fight for and with them in the new, in a time that tried men's 
souls, was most grateful to the people of this country, and his reception in the Capitol of the 
Republic, the 10th of December, 1824, after an absence of nearly half a century, was one of 
peculiar and thrilling interest. It fell to the lot of Mr. Clay, as Speaker of the House of 
Representatives, to tender to this distinguished guest the unfeigned welcome of the nation, 
and to do the honors of the occasion. We need not say, that it was done as it should be. 
The feeling was intense, and the scene sublime. We are indebted to an allusion of the 
speaker on the occasion for the inimitable and just illustration, that it was not unlike the re- 
union of pure spirits in an after state of existence, to recount the worthy deeds of the former, 
in which they had mutual sufferings, toils, perils, triumphs — and in the end a glorious tri- 
umph. 

Mr. Clay and General Jackson. 

We are advised by Mr. Clay himself, in a speech in Senate, of 1838, that his first acquaint- 
ance with General Jackson, was in the fall of 1815 or 1816, and mutually agreeable. In 
1819, Mr. Clay thought it his duty, in debate, to animadvert with freedom, and in terms 
of censure, on some parts of General Jackson's conduct in the Seminole campaign, relating to 
the execution of Ambrister and Arbuthnot, his hostile irruption into Florida in violation of 
instructions from the War Department, and his forcible seizure of the fortress of Pensacola, 
while in possession of a Spanish garrison. This was of course displeasing, and interrupted 
their friendship. At an early part of the session of Congress for 1824-5, they met at a din 
ner got up by the mutual friends of both, and General Jackson took Mr. Clay home in his 
carriage, after which they repeatedly met at dinner, till the election of Mr. Adams by the 
House of Representatives, which was the end of their social intercourse. 

Mr. Clay a candidate for the Presidency in 1S24 — the result. 

The votes of the Electoral Colleges stood thus : — For Andrew Jackson, 99 ; for John 
Quincy Adams, 84; for Wm. H. Crawford, 41 ; for Hen 17 Clay, 37. Of course, by a rule 
of the Constitution, the three candidates having the largest number of votes, went into the 
House of Representatives, in Congress, for a choice, which resulted in the election of Mr. 
Adams. 

Mr. Clay, who had a majority of the Legislature of Louisiana in his favor, was entitled to 
the Electoral vote of that State, and would have been carried over Mr. Crawford into the 
House, if the choice of Electors by that body had not been made in the absence of two or three 
of his friends. There was also a disgraceful intrigue in the control of the Electoral votes of 
New York, the detail of which is in evidence and fully substantiated, which violated an under- 
standing among the friends of the respective candidates, and robbed Mr. Clay of a sufficient 
number of votes to have carried him into the House. So that, by unfair dealing, Mr. Clay 
failed of being returned to the House, from two independent sources, either of which, con- 
ducted in good faith, would have made him President of the United States in 1825 ; for it is 
admitted, that he would have been elected, if he had gone into the House of Representatives. 
The consequences to the countiy, made contingent on that event, have been truly momentous ! 

Plurality— majority. 
Every one knows, that the 162 Electoral votes given for Messrs. Adams, Crawford, and 
Clay, were for either of these men, in preference to General Jackson, and consequently, that 
the majority over General Jackson's 99 votes, and against him, was 63. And yet, it was 
most Mtt-democratically maintained at the time and afterward, that because General Jackson 
had a plurality of votes, he was entitled to be made President against the will of the majority ! 

The alleged bargain. 
A most wicked and infamous attempt was made, while the election of President was pend- 
ing in the House of Representatives, to force Mr. Clay into the support of General Jackson, 



10 

or to bar his freedom of action, by publishing a story, that Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay had 
made a bargain, in which Mr. Clay was to support Mr. Adams for the Presidency, and Mr. 
Adams was to make Mr. Clay Secretary of State. The absurdity of this calumny must 
instantly strike any one, who regards either of the following considerations: — 1. That no 
office would be refused to Mr. Clay, whichever of the candidates might be President, whether 
we consider his merits, or the fact, that neither could be elected without his aid. 2. That 
Mr. Clay's rejection of all offices under Mr. Madison and Mr. Monroe, was sufficient evi- 
dence, that he did not covet such honors, and would not take them, except to serve the 
country. 3. That Mr. Clay's known views of General Jackson's character and principles, — 
without disparaging his merits as a soldier — would of necessity oblige him to lend his influence 
in another direction. 4. That, having ascertained by a personal visit, that Mr. Crawford's 
state of health forbade all hope of fitness for the office of Chief Magistrate, Mr. Clay had no 
choice. And 5. That Mr. Clay had repeatedly, by letter and conversation, before the meeting 
of Congress and afterward, declared his purpose to support Mr. Adams. Was Mr. Clay a 
man to bargain for place — to solicit ? 

The investigation. 

As was due to himself, Mr. Clay demanded of the House a Committee of investigation, 
and Mr. George Kremer, a member from Pennsylvania, was compelled to father the deed. 
But this precious morsel was too important to those who had got it up, and who were feeding 
the nation witli it, to allow it so suddenly to be snatched from them, and Mr. Kremer is 
instructed to bade out from the Committee, under the extraordinary pretext, that he did not 
choose to be forced into such a court, either as accuser or witness I A libeller, and not bound 
to prove it ! 

The after plot. 

It was foreseen, that nothing was more probable, than that Mr. Clay should go for Mr. 
Adams, and nothing more probable than that Mr. Adams should desire Mr. Clay to be Secre- 
tary of State. " Well then," said these conspirators, " we have nothing to do but to promul- 
gate it as a bargain to defeat General Jackson ; and if it turns out so, as doubtless it will, we 
shaH have him on that tack ; or if, after such an assault, he has not courage enough to act 
the free man, we shall have gained our end by the shortest cut." 

With that indignant scorn, with which conscious rectitude looks in the face of mean artifice 
and low cunning, Mr. Clay supported Mr. Adams, as he had declared lie should, and then 
went into the State Department. All the world would have justified him, if he had done the 
latter for no other reason, than to vindicate his rights against a foul conspiracy. 

But a little more than two years afterward, a fetter, dated March 8, 1827, written, though 
not signed, by Carter Beverly, of Virginia, appeared in the newspapers, stating, on the 
authority of General Jackson, that Mr7 Clay's friends in Congress had made proposals to 
General Jackson, to support him in the House of Representatives for President, if he (Gen. 
Jackson) would not continue Mr. Adams Secretary of State ; in other words, as understood, 
if he would make Mr. Clay Secretary, which he (General Jackson) had indignantly rejected. 

It was not till the 5th of June (time enough to hatch up the mode of future proceeding, 
and time enough to give this infamous calumny full scope of action on the public mind) that 
General Jackson could be induced, although solicited by Mr. Beverly, to confirm his (Mr. 
Beverly's) letter; and then he shifted the responsibility on " a distinguished member of 
Congress," the Hon. James Buchanan, as afterward appeared. But Mr. Buchanan, having 
some honesty in his heart, was forced to throw back all the responsibility on his master, 
entirely acquitting Mr. Clay and his friends, and got out of the scrape as well as he could! 
Mr. Beverly, foreseeing that he must die, and being troubled in his conscience on account 
of that letter, has since, in another document, made a public recantation, so that this deep- 
laid, foul conspiracy is now fully exposed. That the parties in it should first originate such 
calumnies, and then allow them to (loat so long, even for years, over the broad surface of the 
community, poisoning the public mind against a man, whose pure and disinterested patriotism, 
and whose unsullied lumor, none knew better than the calumniators themselves, can only be 
accounted for by the fact, that such deep depravity was necessary to their ends. 

The truth of the case. 
The truth is, that the advances made in this case, were from the other side, and from Gen. 
Jackson himself, towards Mr. Clay, we mean not in unworthy proposals, but with a manifest 
anxiety to obtain Mr. Clay's support. Mr. Clay retired early from the dinner, of which we 
have spoken elsewhere, and was about to step into his own carriage, which was waiting at 
the door, when he was followed by General Jackson and Major Eaton, and pressed to take 
a seat with them, with which, by common civility, he was forced to comply. And this polite- 
ness was continued till the election in the House took place; and the worst of it all is, that it 
was continued while the plot against Mr. Clay was hatching, and a part of it (Mr. Kremcr's) 
actually opening on the public. 



11 

The re-action. 
It is the wise economy of Providence, that great offences shall have a great atonement, and 
that innocence under a cloud, shall come out under the blaze of noon. It was a cloud, in 
deed, and a dark one, which the enemies of Mr. Clay brought over his head; and although it 
has been slow in departing, the clay will be so much brighter and longer. Shielded by up- 
rightness, Mr. Clay has always been too lofty-minded to battle with calumny, or even to avail 
himself of disproof or confession, except as urged by duty to his friends and the public; and 
when reminded by a voice from the crowd, during his speech at Lexington, June 6, 1842, of 
Mr. Beverly's recantation, he replied — " I want no testimony," — and laying his hand upon his 
heart, said — " here — here — HERE is the best ivitness of my innocence." Mr. Clay may be 
wrong in this, and ought, doubtless, to consent to a full exposure of the base slanders, by 
which he was once so fiercely assailed. The hearts of the people of this country have long 
been returning, and are still returning to him, so far as they have been alienated, like the 
ocean tide that rolls up on the bosom of the shore, with this difference: — there will be no 
ebbing of the waters. 

Mr. Clay and Mr. Randolph. 
All are acquainted with the eccentricities of John Randolph, and with the facts, that he 
had no great liking for Mr. Clay, and that he was wont to rebel against Mr. Clay's discipline, 
as Speaker of the House of Representatives. It is, however, recorded, to his credit, that in 
1833, while passing through Washington to Philadelphia, where he died soon after, — he 
requested to be carried up to the Senate Chamber, although too' weak to walk, or stand. He 
had not been there long, before Mr. Clay rose to speak in debate. " Help me up, help me 
up," said Mr. Randolph to a friend that stood by him — " I came here to hear that voice." 
When Mr. Clay had finished, he came and spoke with Mr. Randolph. They shook hands, 
and parted in a spirit of mutual good will. It was the last time they ever met. 

Mr. Adams' Administration — Mr. Clay as Secretary of State. 

The grounds of opposition to Mr. Adams' Administration, or rather the reasons alleged, 
which occasioned his defeat in 1828, have long since been exploded, though too late to save 
the country from a long and sad history of misfortune. The reasons were generally about aa 
valid, as the calumnies against Mr. Clay. Never in our history have we had a better or more 
patriotic Administration, and never was the country equally prosperous. History will do it 
justice, and even the people are already inclined to do so. They now behold in Mr. Adams 
an American patriarch of transcendant virtue, and transcendant powers, rising in reputation 
and glory, as lie descends to the place of his fathers. Like the trees of a tropical climate, he 
has blossomed and borne fruit twice, before his summer has ended. 

The Administration of the State Department by Mr. Clay, was alike honorable to himself, 
and beneficial to the country. The Panama Mission was under his guidance, in which he 
was peculiarly at home as the advocate of the South American States ; his attempt to gain the 
favorable interposition of Russia in behalf of those States, reflects not less honor on his heart, 
than his head ; and more treaties were negotiated by him, than by all his predecessors from 
the foundation of the Government. The reputation of Mr. Clay in foreign parts, gave him 
eminent facilities in the management of our foreign affairs, and they were used with a true 
American spirit, as just as patriotic. It was a time of general peace, and therefore no great 
and stirring questions were then in agitation. " Who," said Mr. Adams, after his retirement, 
" could select a man, whom, for his pre-eminent talents, for his splendid services, for his ar- 
dent patriotism, for his all embracing public spirit, for his fervid eloquence in behalf of the 
rights and liberties of mankind, and for his long experience in the affairs of the Union, foreign 
and domestic, a President of the United States, intent only on the honor and welfare of his 
country, ought to have preferred to Henry Clay ?" 

Good humor. 

On Mr. Clay's return to Kentucky, after the inauguration of General Jackson, in the spring 
of 1829, he found the roads extremely bad, and to avoid the thumps and knocks of the inside 
of the stage, he turned his back upon his fellow passengers, and took a seat with the driver 
on the box, when they were a few miles east of Unionlown, Pa. The citizens of that place, 
being on the look out for the arrival of the Ex-Secretary of State, stood in crowds to welcome 
him, as the stage drove up. " Gentlemen," said Mr. Clay, before he got down, " you see I 
am among the OUTS, but I can assure you, that the INS behind me have a far worse time 
of it." 

Mr. Clay's good humor never forsakes him. It seems impossible for him to resist tempta- 
tions for repartee, in which he is most skilful, or for original pleasantries of which he is most 
prolific, or for sallies of wit in which he is most happy. His buoyant, lofty, and ever-active 
mind, seems to be relieved by such playfulness. Or is this the mode by which superior and 
more vigorous intellects can more easily come down to a common level, and commune with 



12 

ordinary minds ? We observe, that this propensity is usually altied to benevolence. Cer- 
tainly, whether so or not, its effect is to relieve the tedium of the dull facts of life, and to 
promote the happiness of social intercourse. 

Three thousand at one table. 

On the 16th of May, 1S29, after Mr. Clay's retirement, lie sat down to a public dinner^ 
m Fowler's garden, Lexington, given in honor of him, with three thousand of his " old friends 
and neighbors" ! It was then he said : — " When I felt as if I should sink beneath the storm of 
abuse and detraction, which was violently raging around me, I felt myself upheld and sustained 
by your encouraging voice and your approving smiles. I have doubtless committed many 
faults and indiscretions, over which you have thrown the broad mantle of your charity." Such 
communion with " old friends and neighbors" is not bought by kings ; it is the free gift of a 
generous people to a faithful public servant — the reward of patriotic effort in the service of 
freemen — himself one of them. Never unmindful of this generous confidence, so early 
bestowed, and so unremittingly maintained for a long course of years, Mr. Clay could not 
overlook them in his farewell speech to the Senate, the last of March, 1842. After having 
endeavored to express his obligations to the Senate, to the country, to all his friends 
" throughout this continent," he added : — " What shall I say — what can I say at all commen- 
surate with those feelings of gratitude which I owe to the State, whose humble representative 
and servant I have been in this chamber 1" [Here Mr. Clay's voice faltered under the 
struggle of his emotions.] " In the darkest hour of calumny and detraction, when I seemed to 
be forsaken by all the rest of the world, she threw her broad and impenetrable shield around 
me, and bearing me up aloft in her courageous arms, repelled the poisoned shafts that were 
aimed at my destruction, and vindicated my good name against every false and unfounded 
assault." 

" Bearing me up aloft in her courageous arms," said Mr. Clay, lifting and extending hi9 
own arms, and raising his voice, which trembled and broke with emotion, as he said it. We 
heard it. And he who heard it, will not soon forget the manner. — " Repelled" said Mr. 
Clay, with a corresponding expression of gesture, which told the triumphant vindication he 
experienced in that hour, from such defenders. 

He met them again, face to face, in 1842, when the same scene was re-enacted, in the 
presence of tens of thousands, with additional interest, arising from the circumstances of the 
present, the history of the past, and the prospect of the future. 

Mr. Clay's re-election to the Senate in 1831. 
We are forced to go backward and forward, for the sake of putting like things under the 
same head, though far apart in time. Never were the services of Mr. Clay more required, 
in defence of American labor and enterprise, than on his return to the Senate in 1831, in 
which branch of Congress he had not had a seat since 1811. The faithlessness of the then 
existing Administration to the best interests of the country, and their insidious attempts to 
break down the tariff regulations of 1824 and 1828, were but too apparent. Mr. Clay was 
the only man equal to the crisis, and even he, as we have before noticed, was only able to 
save the tariff from immediate and entire demolition by a Compromise. 

Mr. Clay's second nomination to the Presidency. 
It was made by the National Republican Convention, at Baltimore, the 12th of December, 
1831, and the Hon. John Sargeant was nominated for Vice President. Mr. John Floyd, of 
Virginia, and the Hon. Wm. Wirt were also in the field for 1832. But the action of those 
opposed to the Jackson dynasty, in this campaign, was rather to keep up the organization, 
than with any expectation of success. It was manifest that the people had not even begun 
to recover from the infatuation of the time, and from the poison that had been infused into their 
minds by the calumniators of Mr. Clay. Although Mr. Clay is ever a candidate for the 
Presidency in the hearts of his friends, he has never been put in nomination, and never been 
in the field, but twic-e, viz., in 1824, when he was cheated out of it, as we have shown, and 
for the campaign of 1832, when no one expected any other result than the success of General 
Jackson. In 1836 he declined a nomination, that was tendered. 

"I would rather be right, than be President." 
So said Mr. Clay to the Hon. Wm. C. Preston, m a private interview, as certified by the 
latter. If for many years, when truth and fairness could not prevail, such a resolution did 
him no good, it is nevertheless true, that, in the end, honesty is the best policy. Where, in 
the history of political society, has such firmness in the right, against such obstacles and such 
assailants, been maintained so long, so unswervingly, so heroically ? Long time were the 
doctrines and policy advocated by Mr. Clay injurious to him politically ; and he knew, and all 
knew, it would be so. But who ever saw him trim ? Who ever accused him of a want of 
frankness ? 



13 

The jmblic domain. 

Wc need not say how much ihe country owes to Mr. Clay for his course on this subject; 
though it may be proper to state, what is not generally thought of, that the public land* 
would have been for ever wrested from the rightful owners, but for him. It is also proper to 
notice the fact, that this question would have been finally and fairly settled in 1833, but for a 
fraud on the people, by subverting the operation of the Constitution. The bill passed by a 
majority of 21 to 20 in the Senate, and of 96 to 40 in the House. Such was the feeling in 
Congress on this subject, it was never doubted, that it ivould have passed by a vote of two 
thirds in both houses, and thus become a law, even under the veto, if it had been returned ii< 
season for action. To have had it thus returned, was undoubtedly the constitutional right of 
the legislative branch of the Government. But advantage was taken of the adjournment of 
Congress before the ten days after it was sent to the President had expired, and he kept if 
over to the next session, thus defeating the will of the nation. 

Again, in 1836, a land distribution bill was carried through the Senate by Mr. Clay, in » 
vote of 25 to 20, and though approved of by a majority of the House, it was nevertheless 
defeated there by the influence of the Executive. la JS42 it was hilled by a Veto of Join. 
Tyler. In all these ways, and for so long time, not only on this, but on sundry othei 
momentously important measures, has the will of the nation been thwarted by the One Man 
power. This great measure of Mr. Clay, by which he has stood so long and so constantly, 
lias never failed to have with it a majority of the people. 

So anxious was Mr. Clay that this bill should escape the veto power in 1833, and so self- 
sacrificing his spirit for what he conceived to be the good of the country, that in the fervor of 
his zeal in debate, he turned and said to his colleague, Mr. Grundy, the friend of the Presi- 
dent, '•' Tell General Jackson, if he will sign this bill, I will pledge myself to retire from 
Congress, and never enter into public life again. " 

The. United States Bank. 

Although the fundamental and vital principle of democracy, the will of the people, as ex- 
pressed by their representative organs, was violated by General Jackson's veto of the bank 
bill in 1832, nevertheless, as the act was authorized by the Constitution, it does not compare 
with the flagrant criminality of the removal of the deposites. The President himself, in a 
message to Congress, proposed to enlarge the powers of the Secretary of the Treasury, with 
a view to this object, thereby recognising the sound doctrine, that it could not otherwise be 
done, as the Constitution had made Congress the keeper and given that body the control of 
the public funds. The House of Representatives answered the message by a vote of 109 to 
46 against the proposal, which was decisive so far as the authority of the Constitution could 
go. But, lo ! General Jackson walks straight over this vote, and over the Constitution, and 
removes the deposites, in the face of both ! It was impossible for Mr. Clay, as a public 
guardian of the Constitution and the rights of the people, to be silent on these occasions, so 
painful to the heart of the true patriot. Uniformly, therefore, and frequently has he stood 
up to denounce these abuses of the Veto power, and these infractions of the Constitution. 
The Resolutions of the Senate on the removal of the deposites, though " Expunged" by a 
subsequent resolution of the same body, are only made more conspicuous by the latter act, 
and will hand the true story down to posterity. 

Mr. Clay's Policy in regard to a national bank. 

All know that Mr. Clay is in favor of such an institution ; but it is not without reference 
to the will of the people, that he would propose one. When the Sub-treasury was under debate, 
in 1836, he said in the Senate, " If a national bank should be established, its stability and 
utility will depend upon the general conviction that is felt for its necessity. *4nd until such a 
conviction is deeply impressed upon ihe people, and clearly manifested by them, it would, in my 
judgment, be unwise even to propose a bank." When Senator Wright, the same year, in 
answer to petitions for a bank, offered a resolution, "that the prayer of the petitioners ought 
not to be granted,'' Mr. Clay moved the following substitute, " That it will be expedient to 
establish a bank of the United States, ichenever it shall be manifest, that a clear majority of ihe 
people of ihe United States desire such an institution," which was negatived, and Mr. Wright's 
was adopted. That is, it was resolved, that a clear majority should not rule ! In 1842, Mr. 
Clay put forward, in a letter to Mr. Jacob Stratton, Secretary of the National Clay Club, at 
Philadelphia, a summary of principles of public policy, as held by him, the first of which is, 
" A sound national currency, regulated by the will and authority of the people." 

General Jackson's meditated war with France. 
The first instalment of the indemnity of 25,000,000 of francs, nearly $5,000,000, as nego- 
tiated in the treaty of 1831, for French spoliations on our commerce from 1800 to 1815, was 
not paid by reason of the refusal of the French Chambers to make an appropriation ; but the 
King and his ministry desired to pay. As our Executive only had to do with the Executive 



14 

of France in this matter, there was no difference between them, and some courtesy was due 
to the King of the French in his inability. But General Jackson, in his message of Decem- 
ber, 1834, recommended a law, authorizing reprisals, in case the French Chambers should not 
provide for the debt during the then approaching session. That this menacing attitude of the 
President of the United States should deeply wound the King of the French, and exasperate 
the French Chambers, and the nation, is not strange. Louis Philippe recalled his minister 
from Washington, tendered passports to our minister at Paris, and we were at once on the 
eve of war, when Mr. Clay brought in his celebrated " French Report," on the 6th of Jan. 
1835, the result of which, in connexion with a corresponding resolution of the Senate, was 
the restoration of good feeling and the payment of the debt, while the honor of our country 
was maintained. This third time was the nation saved from the horrors and calamities of 
war by Henry Clay. So bent was General Jackson on a fight with France, that he stayed at 
the Capitol till 12 o'clock the last night of the Session, urging an appropriation that would 
put the business in his own hands. 

Mr. Clay in the Twenty-seventh Congress. 

What that Congress did, has been shown in our first tract, The Test; what they could not 
do, by reason of treachery, everybody knows already. The Chief that was set up by the 
people, had been stricken down by the hand of the Almighty, and in his place came one, 
second only, in the violations of trust, to him who sold his Lord and Master for thirty pieces 
of silver. 

But Mr. Clay, schooled in the misfortunes of his country, and never despairing of the re- 
public, stood erect in the common disappointment, and witnessed the complete redemption of 
the country deferred again by an inscrutable Providence. Shoulder to shoulder with his 
political associates, himself leader, he fought through the Extra-Session for the principles and 
measures he had contended for through life, and though he had wished and purposed to retire 
from the councils of the nation at an earlier date, he yielded to the claims of duty, in this 
unexpected exigency of public affairs, to attend the next Session. Failing of the measures 
which the country waited for, and had a right to expect, Mr. Clay embraced this last oppor- 
tunity to propose some amendments in the Constitution of the United States, and to bring 
forward his views, in the form of sundry resolutions offered to the Senate, as to the policy 
and measures required in the present state of the country. Each of these resolutions, eleven 
in number, was discussed at large by him the 1st of March, 1842. They regarded chiefly the 
revenue and financial policy of the Government, the disposal of the public domain, retrench- 
ment and reform in the different branches of the public service, and proposed to require of the 
Heads of the Departments detailed reports on these several modes of reform, preparatory to 
legislative action. 

The amendments of the Constitution proposed, were : 1. To restrict and limit the Veto 
power. 2. To secure to Congress the control of the Treasury, by vesting in that body the 
appointment of the Secretary. And 3. To prohibit the President from appointing members 
of Congress to office, during the term for which they are elected. 

Having at the Extra Session given his aid for the repeal of the Sub-treasury, and labored in 
vain to re-establish a sound national currency system, and having finally at the Session of 
1841-2, propounded a system of national policy in the resolutions above referred to, together 
with the aforesaid amendments of the Constitution, he bade farewell to the Senate on the 
31st of March, and retired to private life. 

Mr. Clay's Speeches. 
In the speeches of Mr. Clay will be recognised the intellectual and moral stamp of this 
great American Statesman. There will be found, in his own peculiar diction, (wantina:, in- 
deed, the charm of his manner,) his American system, with the facts and reasons, by which he 
so ably set it forth, and so triumphantly defended it; his general views of national policy, as 
well as his views of particular questions ; and niost of the things that have made him so 
eminent and surpassingly influential in human society. Hundreds of his speeches, and some 
of his most brilliant efforts, have been lost, for want of a hand to record them at the time of 
utterance. 

[A. cheap collection of his most important speeches, as they bear on the public interests of the country, 
well chpsen, and well edited, from the most approved copies, in two volumes, with a memoir of his life pre- 
fixed, has been published by Greeley & McElrath, Tribune Office, New York, price one dollar, which, we are 
nappy to observe, is in great demand from all parts of the Union, and going on" by hundreds and thousands. 
It is an auspicious evidence of a growing appetite in the public mind for the food to be derived from such 
a source. It is, in fact, a library of the political history of our country, which every American citizen 
should have within his reach.] 

Mr. Clay an American. 
Although born in Virginia, and adopted by Kentucky, however proud of him they may be, 
he does not belong to them, be it known ; but he is the property of the whole country, to 
which he has devoted the labors of his life. From the character of his mind, and the influence 



15 

of his position, it is morally impossible that lie should be infected with sectional prejudice. 
His heart, his soul is American — all American — and lie belongs to the Union. Can another 
individual be found among us so entirely the property of the American people ? 

Duelling — games at cards. 

In early life, Mr. Clay was a plural number of times engaged in " affairs of honor," and 
twice came to an encounter, first with Mr. Humphry Marshall, of Kentucky, growing out of 
Mr. Clay's motion for the members of the Kentucky legislature to clothe themselves in do- 
mestic fabrics — not a bad cause, though a bad result; and next, with Mr. Randolph. But 
Mr. Clay is now an a>i/i-duellist, if wc understand him. " I owe it to the community to say," 
he publicly observed in later years, " that no man holds in deeper abhorrence than I do, that 
pernicious practice. Its true corrective will be found, when all shall unite, as all ought to 
unite, in its unqualified proscription." 

In 1819, when invited to a game of "bragg," he replied, "Excuse me, gentlemen. I have 
not played a game of hazard for more than twelve years, and I take this opportunity to warn 
you all to avoid a practice destructive of a good name, and drawing after it evil consequences 
of incalculable magnitude." 

Mr. Clay's private fortune. 

Sometime previous to 1820, Mr. Clay suffered deeply by suretyship, and was obliged to be 
absent from Congress two or three years, to get his affairs righted in the practice of his pro- 
fession. No man has sacrificed more to his country in a pecuniary point of view, than Mr. 
Clay. As no lawyer ever had better chances, he might have acquired one of the largest 
fortunes in the Union, if, instead of devoting his life to the public, he had spent it in his pro- 
fession. Mr. Clay is frugal in his habits, though not parsimonious. "Here is a hundred 
dollars ," said Mr. Clay to a young man, handing it over to him, when he came to consult him 
for the recovery of an estate that belonged to him by rightful inheritance. " Take this," said 
Mr. Clay, " and when you want more, call on me." This is a fair specimen of the man. 
Notwithstanding this liberality of disposition, Mr. Clay has saved a comfortable and unem- 
barrassed estate. 

The person of Mr. Clay — his manners — eloquence. 

Mr. Clay is tall, and slenderly, but tightly built, light-haired, and blue-eyed. He is accused 
by phrenologists of eagle-eyed perception. They aver, that he observes all, and sees through 
all, and is apt to hit game, when he fires. Some one has also suggested, that his mother a 
long time ago gave him a " mellow — mellow horn" to wind. Certain it is, if it was not nat- 
urally musical, and of surprising compass, he has made it so by practice. It has thundered 
deep tones, piped shrill notes, and performed all manner of musical functions between these 
extremes. Though it may be a little worse for wear, it is good yet, and preferred to all 
others. 

Mr. Clay ha3 grace, dignity, and command — the first to charm, the second to beget respect, 
and the third to excite awe. Mix them all together, and they make a very perfect man. 

As to his eloquence, it must have been matchless in his youth, judging from its effects. The 
courts, juries, and legislature of Kentucky, popular assemblies there and elsewhere, and both 
houses of Congress, have successively, for nearly half a century, been swayed by him. 

Mr. Clay the caiulidate of the people, for the Presidency in 1844. 

We have never yet seen the Whig man that could make up his mouth to say otherwise. 
The simultaneous rush of the Whig press, of Whig conventions, of Whig assemblies, formal 
and informal, of nineteen twentieths, if not ninety-nine hundredths of the Whig party through- 
out the Union, to put forward the name of Henry Clay for 1844, after the faithlessness of 
the Acting President was placed beyond question, is a most extraordinary fact ; and the 
constantly augmenting power of this general feeling, is another remarkable fact. The 
suggestion, that it was unseasonable, can not well be sustained. It was an extraordinary, 
unparalleled position of the public mind. All confidence in the unfortunate choice that had 
been made of the second on the ticket of 1840, who, by a melancholy event of Providence, 
succeeded as principal, was lost. The great and victorious party of 1840, was without a 
chief, and temporarily doomed to a most vexatious overthrow of their hopes. If they could 
not rally without delay, and concentrate their affections somewhere, they would be scattered 
to the winds. So far from being unseasonable, it was a necessity. It was the irresistible 
action of the instincts of self-preservation. And where else should they — could they go ? 
Wait they must, but not to know what they might hope for in the end, was like the agony of 
final dissolution — like the winding-sheet of despair. 

Most fortunately, fortunate beyond all example in such a case, there was a man not un- 
known to fame — a man whom they would and should have had before — a tried and faithful 
man — a man equal to any and all emergencies, as proved by almost every variety of public 
service lor forty years — who never faltered or made a mistake in the great exigencies of tha 



16 

. » 

nation — who filled the eye of the great world, and for whom the world cherished a profound 
regard — a man equally respected at home and abroad — and whose high endowments and rare 
gifts seemed to have been made and modelled for the occasion. Upon him, without pause, and 
with unexampled unanimity, they fixed their eyes and their hopes. A more settled, or more 
determined purpose has rarely, if ever characterized a state of the public mind. As well 
might you turn back the rivers, or roll back the tides of the ocean, as to oppose these accu- 
mulating forces. 

Gratitude — Ingratitude. 

If there has been occasion for the saying, that " republics are ungrateful," we do not yet con- 
sent that the libel describes the American people. It was gratitude that led the people of 
this country into one of the greatest mistakes they ever committed. General Jackson did us 
great, eminent, heroic service, as a soldien Not to confess it, would indeed be ungrateful. 
And military achievements are always attractive, imposing, and captivating with a susceptible 
and generous people. But the very qualities which made Andrew Jackson a great general, 
unfitted him to guide the helm of State. That strong and unbending will, which is the best 
qualification to lead an army, is the worst possible to preside over a true democracy, where 
the will of all is to be consulted ; that despotic authority which is necessary in the field, is 
most unsuitable in the Chief Magistrate of a free people ; and that impetuosity which bears 
down a foe, in the onset of battle, will carry away the pillars of a republic. Here is the 
secret of the misfortunes of our country in having chosen for President such a man as Andrew 
Jackson. But it was gratitude that made him President. 

While General Jackson was the military idol of the nation, Mr. Clay was borne down by the calumnies 
already noticed — calumnies which for a long period, poisoned the public rnind, but which have since been 
driven and chiefly eradicated from the field they occupied. He now stands before the whole country a 
patriot as spotless as he is disinterested, having the advantage, not only of all his recognised merits, but 
of a man, who, emerging i'rom a dark cloud of aspersion, justified by the certificate of his foes, and ennobled 
by the dignity of his bearing while suffering injustice, is received into the bosoms of a generous people with 
a thousand fold more enthusiasm, than would otherwise have been felt for him, with all his exalted gifts. 
" He is too good a man to be President," was all that could be urged against his nomination at Harrisburg 
in 1839. We shall see whether such a libel on the American people will be proved, now they know what 
he is. Not till it is proved, will we consent to the charge of ingratitude on this republic towards such 



a man. 



The Harrisburg Convention. 



We may assume it as a principle, that a departure from democratic or republican practice, in the action 
of the representatives of the people, will result badly. All know that the Harrisburg Convention of 1839 
disappointed the wishes of the great majority of their constituency, and that the murmurs of the Whig 
party were alarming, when the result was announced. Nothing but the peculiar and distressing state of 
the country, so imperatively demanding a change in the Government, could have united them on such a 
nomination for the campaign of 1840. Nay, if Mr. Clay had not himself gone forward as captain, taken 
the colors into his own hand, and dashed into the thickest of the foe, at the head of his own legions, saying, 
"ir is for the country, and therefore for me, for us all," the summons to the onset would have failed. '• If,'" 
said he, in a private letter read to the Convention, after the nomination was made, " if the deliberations of 
the Convention shall lead them to the choice of another," (than himself,) ''as the candidate, far from 
feeling any discontent, the nomination will have my best wisher;, and RBCEIVE my CORDIAL support!" Such 
magnanimity is not common in the selfish squabbles of this world. 

Such being the facts, the inference is fair, that the nomination generally desired by the people, would 
have been successful in a much greater degree. Availability, if anything other than the wishes of the 
people be brought into the question, is a dangerous doctrine to act upon in such a Convention, as it takes 
the question out of the people's hands, and is hostile to the true principles of democracy. Did not a few, 
a very few decide the nomination at Harrisburg, against the wishes of ihe people 1 The result has been 
immeasurably disastrous. Who ever thought of John Tyler for the Vice-Presidency, in the appointment of 
the members of that Convention? It was the first error which led to that fatality in the second. Once 
break loose from sound principles, and there is no knowing where we shall land. An impromptu nomina- 
tion, made at the discretion, and on the sole responsibility of representatives, is a perilous one. We say not 
this for reproach or rebuke, but because we still have before us the selection of a second to him who is 
already pointed out by the acclamations of the people, and because the saddest experience of the nation 
lias taught us, that that selection may bo momentous. 

A Contrast. 

In 1829, at the end of Mr. Adams' Administration, it could be said, that Congress had been independent, 
and the dominant power in the republic, as the immediate representatives of the people ever ought to be. 
Then, our commerce, agriculture, and manufactures were in a most flourishing condition, never so much 
so ; our currency system was sound, the best in the world ; labor was sure of employment, and of a fair 
reward ; there were few brokers, usurers, and money-lenders ; work, and not speculation, was the business 
of the people ; our habits were simple and democratic ; and our national honor and commercial credit, 
without a stain. Wo were a prosperous, wealthy, thriving, happy people. Such was the state of the 
country when its government was conducted on the principles of Mr. Clay, and he a part of the Government. 

Hut in 1829, democracy was superseded by One Man Power ; Congress became a mere Executive tool ; 
a train of devastation, social and commercial, moral and physical, such as no other country ever experienced 
in so short a lime, from similar causes, followed ; our manufactures were nearly prostrated ; trade was 
paralyzed; agriculturo was depressed ; the currency was ruined; general morals were corrupted; our 
honor sullied and our credit gone ; wild and ruinous speculations drove industry and economy from the 
field of enterprise ; brokers and jobbers rode the nation out of breath and out of flesh ; and the Government 
of the country, in all its branches and agencies, was put up at auction to the highest bidders in a system 
of utter political venality and crime. 

" Look on this picture— then on that." 



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